Impressive New Zealand rule of law ranking saluted
New Zealand’s impressive performance in the influential World of Justice Project rule of law index has been celebrated
by the New Zealand Law Society’s fortnightly magazine LawTalk.
In a front-page story in the latest issue, LawTalk quotes Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson as saying that New
Zealand as a nation and lawyers as a profession can be very proud of this country’s very high ranking in the WJP index.
New Zealand ranked among the world’s best performers in the index, and best in the world in one of the eight categories
measured – lack of corruption.
“It is gratifying to see this affirmation of the robustness of the rule of law in New Zealand,” Mr Finlayson told
LawTalk. “The world-beating ranking in terms of lack of corruption in the judiciary was especially pleasing given some
of the uninformed criticism of the courts in the last year.”
Mr Finlayson says the New Zealand Law Society and the New Zealand Bar Association have both played an important role in
upholding the values of the rule of law “as I have said on a number of occasions”.
“The New Zealand Law Society has demonstrated a real commitment to debating and promoting the discussion of rule of law
issues,” he says.
LawTalk also cautions that in spite of the very good result for New Zealand, the Law Society will need to continue to be
vigilant about rule of law matters.
The convenor of the Society’s Rule of Law Committee, Austin Forbes QC, says the WJP index is not really going to uncover
such issues as Parliament’s use of urgency or the situation where regulations can alter Acts.
“We can’t afford to be complacent and we will continue to be concerned about rule of law issues,” Mr Forbes says.
The WJP Index, released annually, ranks 66 countries for a number of factors. As well as coming top in the absence of
corruption factor, New Zealand was second in two categories: open government and limited government powers.
It was third in three more areas: fundamental rights, regulatory enforcement and effective criminal justice. While New
Zealand ranked fourth in access to civil justice, this was an area where it received its lowest ranking, being 18th in
the measure “civil justice is not subject to unreasonable delays”.